Mulberry Jelly

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MulberryJellyandanHonorFlight

My son Bob and his beautiful wife Kim, live in a gorgeous old home that has been in her dads family for over 60+ years. They live in the upper half and Kim’s grandpa lives in the lower half. He is 87+ years old so they help him out, even though he is really quite independent. I love talking to older people, listening to them talk about the past and the lives that they have lived.

OldGloryHonorFlight

Grandpa is a WW II Veteran and recently took part in the Old Glory Honor Flight. Old Glory Honor Flights are dedicated to transporting our WW II Veterans to Washington, D.C. to see the memorials built in their honor. What a wonderful way to Honor the Men and Women who served in World War II. “It’s Never To Late To Say Thank-You” to all the brave men and women that serve and have served in our Armed Forces.

TheProperty

The property that the house sits on is huge. It’s full of old trees, lilac bushes, flowers and plants that seem to change with the seasons. There is a garden behind the garage where Kim spent summers helping her Grandma plant. It has a small pond with fish, a small foot bridge that is over a creek that flows into Lake Winnebago. There are two sheds full of “grandpa’s treasures” Antique farm equipment is scattered around the property and a large weather vane that squeaks loudly when it catches the wind.

The garage is big enough to house three cars. A smokehouse is on the property that hasn’t been used in years. It’s a gazebo style structure with a built in brick/wood burning stove, where they cooked pizza, I do believe. On the property, they also have wild life. I live in the woods of northern Wisconsin and I have yet to see a deer in my yard. I have plenty of rabbits, squirrels and birds but no deer. They live in the city and have a yard full of deer, raccoons, foxes and a family of owls!

Update: In the Spring of 2014, the smokehouse had a face lift. In July of 2014, it was the setting for a wedding.

MulberryTrees

Another thing they have in their yard are four humongous Mulberry trees. I mean these babies are Huge! Back in June, we (Kim and I) had planned a thrift shopping day. Something we often do during the summer months. You see Bob and Kim are both teachers, and have summers off. When we got back from our adventurous day thrift shopping, we were walking around the yard and I noticed these blackish, purplish stains on the driveway. I walked over to get a better look and there were a literally a million berries all over the ground. At first I thought they were blackberries but nope, blackberries don’t grow on trees.

WhatareThose??

I asked Kim,” What kind of berries are these?” ” I don’t know” she said. I said, “Let’s go ask Grandpa.” Well Grandpa thought they were boysenberries but he wasn’t really sure what they were but he was pretty sure the weren’t poisonous. I decided to eat a few and they tasted pretty darn good to me. A cross between a blackberry/blueberry and açaí berries. Kim suggested I take a sample home and google it. I did indeed went home and googled it. They weren’t boysenberries but they were mulberries. Score!

I immediately called Kim and told her what they were. This was a huge find. Not many people have access to mulberries in their yard and definitely not trees that are well established like these were. (we discovered a few years later that they also have black walnut trees on their property.) Like any good wife, she immediately sent Bob back outside to pick the berries. He picked a gallon size, zip-lock baggie full of berries. I told him to freeze them until I could get back.

Stains,Stains,Stains

According to Bobby, mulberries aren’t much fun to “pick.” They stain your hands, clothes, shoes and anything else they come in contact with but the stains do wash away eventually. It was a few weeks later before I got back for a visit. We (me, Kim and Bobby) picked two 5 quart ice cream pails full of berries. If you have ever picked berries of any kind, you know that’s a lot! These yummy berries aren’t fun at all to pick. Our hands were stained black, we were getting eaten up alive by mosquitoes, bees were swarming around us and most of the berries were hard to reach. BUT, they are so worth it.

LessonLearned

Next year, after some research, we learned that the easiest way to “pick” mulberries is to actually “whack” them off the tree. We’re going to lay a large tarp/old sheet on the ground, Bob will get on a step ladder to reach the higher branches, and Kim and I will bang or whack the lower limbs of the tree with a baseball bats. This will jog the berries loose, they’ll fall to the ground and land on the tarp/old sheet. We can then lift the corners of the tarp/old sheet together and dump them into large pails. This process should make picking/whacking/harvesting the mulberries much easier. If you’re wondering what mulberries taste like, to me they taste like blackberries, blueberries and acai berries all wrapped into one delicious berry.

Preparation

Since mulberries spoil rather quickly, unless you plan on using them right away, I would highly suggest freezing them first. You don’t want all your hard work picking the berries to go to waste. Therefore I always freeze the berries asap until I’m ready to make jam. Before freezing the berries, lightly sort through them. Pick out any leaves and sticks and bugs. It is not necessary to rinse the mulberries before freezing (unless they have been sprayed with chemicals) nor is it necessary to remove the small stems at the top of the berries before freezing.

Since mulberries are loaded with seeds, cook the fresh/frozen berries down, the small stems and all. After I cook down the berries, put the berries through a food mill or strain through layers of cheesecloth, squeezing the pulp, seeds and stems. Discard pulp, seeds etc. From the 5 quart pail of mulberries, I ended up with a 1/2 gallon of juice and stained hands. The recipe I used to make jelly called for 4 cups of juice per batch.

Now on to the recipe.

GeneralRuleofThumb: Fruit juice is used to make jelly. Crushed or lightly mashed fruit is used to make jam, preserves and spreads.

HowtoMakeFruitJuiceforJellyHerearea fewtips~

Use soft fruits such as: Grapes, Cherries, Berries.

Select top-quality fruit.

Wash, pit and stem fruit.

Slightly crush fruit.

Add 1/4 water per quart of fruit in a large saucepan.

Cover; simmer fruit until soft.

Strain mixture through a damp jelly bag or several layers of cheesecloth to extract juice.

Comments

Last year I used a different recipe and the jelly didn't set. I am going to try this one and hope my luck changes. I also found it helpful to drop the berries into my power juicer and it made it much easier with less mess to separate the juice from the seeds and stems. It cut my jelly making time in half!.

Thanks for dropping by:) I had the same problem the first time I made jelly, it didn't set either. I used this recipe and it worked. Mulberries have hardly any natural pectin that's why it doesn't set up the best. I always add a bit more pectin, just in case:)

What a wonderful story and am so glad you shared this with us on our Four Seasons Blog Hop. Tell Grandpa Thank you for his service and we all really appreciate his sacrifice for our Freedom and way of life.